


hold me tight (or don't)

by aleksanteri



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Book 4, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Draco Malfoy is Clueless About Muggle Things, Draco Malfoy is a Little Shit, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, M/M, Muggle London, No Smut, POV Alternating, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Very Loosely Based, everyone is a muggle except harry and draco, its not at hogwarts, kind of, oh yeah also the dursleys are shitheads, probably too much swearing, the writing skills of someone who doesn't know how to write, voldemort is very much a thing but this is a love story first and foremost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22410637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleksanteri/pseuds/aleksanteri
Summary: Three years ago, to the great surprise of the entirety of the Wizarding World, Harry Potter never showed up to Hogwarts. This was particularly disappointing to a young Draco Malfoy, who had spent the majority of the first eleven years of his life fantasising about meeting him.Loosely based fourth year AU, in which Harry is missing, Voldemort finds him, and Draco is tasked with infiltrating his life.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. prologue

_-july 2019_  
In a small terraced house in the center of London, Harry Potter awoke with a jolt. He shot up into a sitting position, breathing heavy and eyes wide in panic. He clutched a hand to his burning forehead, and attempted to recall the details of the dream he had just woken from. It was quickly slipping away, but behind his eyelids floated the image of a large abandoned house, a room with two men and a sort of strange deformed baby creature; and a blinding flash of green light. The people were talking about things he didn't really understand, stuff about wizards and magic and whatever the hell muggles were, but that didn’t make sense; magic wasn’t real. Uncle Vernon had drilled that fact into him enough times to ensure he would never forget it. None of this would have bothered him usually - nightmares were a common occurrence for him and they never meant anything - but this one felt… off somehow, like it was slightly more real than the rest of his dreams.

The pain in his head was subsiding, now just a weak throb, and he let any thoughts about the nightmare slip away. Squinting into the dark of his room, he reached over for his phone and checked the time. _3am_. He flopped back down onto his pillow with a sigh; he needed to be up in three hours. Despite the exhaustion weighing him down, it took a solid half an hour for him to fall back into an uneasy sleep.  
\--  
Three years ago, to the great surprise of the entirety of the Wizarding World, Harry Potter never showed up to Hogwarts. This was particularly disappointing to a young Draco Malfoy, who had spent the majority of the first eleven years of his life fantasising about meeting him. He had heard all the stories - the boy who stopped the Dark Lord when he was only a baby (imagine how powerful he must be!) - and had meticulously planned their first meeting. It would be on the train to Hogwarts (much better to find him then, it would give them hours to talk before they even got to the school!), he would search the train for him with Crabbe and Goyle in tow (to show off his power and influence), mention his family’s status (the most famous person in the entire wizarding world would surely want to choose his company based on their prestige, after all), and offer his hand (a polite gesture; a sign of mutual respect). It was the perfect plan, and he had no doubt at all that it would work and he would claim the great Harry Potter for himself; which is why, on September 1st 2015, after searching the train up and down multiple times with still no sign of the boy, he had a _bit_ of a temper tantrum. Admittedly not the best way to start his school life at Hogwarts, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that no-one knew where Harry was. It was well and truly a mystery for the entirety of Wizarding Britain. Not even the headmaster knew what happened to the boy. Two days before the beginning of term, after receiving no owl from Harry in acceptance of his place at the school, Dumbledore had ventured out (apparated) to the Dursley house, only to learn they had moved out years ago, with the man never being informed. None of the devices used to track the boy were working, and after many long months of searching, they eventually lost hope. The Wizarding World resigned themselves to the fact that their hero would likely never appear, and began to ask if he even existed in the first place. Perhaps Lily Potter killed Voldemort instead. Or maybe, Harry was killed that night too, and the tales of the Boy-Who-Lived were merely rumours blown way out of proportion.

The lack of a figurehead to represent the end of the war made many people uneasy, however, and the fears surrounding the possibility of the Dark Lord still being alive and out there crept up steadily throughout Wizarding Society. There wasn’t actually any proof of his downfall, despite his sudden disappearance and the claims of his demise, and the one person who would have reassured the public (after all, nobody who Voldemort wanted dead ever came out alive) was mysteriously missing. They were in a time of peace, there was no doubt about that, but people were becoming more and more sceptical of how long it would last. Which brings us to now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is super short but it's just a prologue, the other chapters will be longer! this is my first fic i've ever posted so pls bear with me :)


	2. new beginnings

On a day in late August, 2019, Draco Malfoy’s life changed dramatically. The day had started just fine; he had woken up nice and early, joined his parents for an informal (by the Malfoy family’s standards, anyway) breakfast, and then had spent much of his morning outside, wandering the grounds and basking in the warm summer sun. It had all turned around, however, after lunch, when his father had summoned him to his study for a ‘talk’.

This was never good. ‘Talks’ with Lucius Malfoy almost always concerned some failure on Draco’s part, most often regarding his grades. His grades weren’t bad, far from it actually, but every year he was outshined by this one girl in his year, who seemed to spend more time in the library than out of it. He’d grown to resent her quite heavily over the years.

This particular meeting with his father, however, turned out to be much worse. 

He followed his father into his study and took a seat in the chair facing the desk. They eyed each other for a long moment, and then his father spoke.

“The Dark Lord summoned me last night.” 

_Shit._ Lucius had found Voldemort a few months ago, and he and Peter Pettigrew were the only two Death Eaters currently in his service. The rest were either rotting in Azkaban or still unaware of his survival. Draco had yet to see the man himself, which he was eternally thankful for. He personally despised the man, and while some of his own prejudices lined up with the Dark Lord’s, he most certainly didn’t aspire to follow him. The stories he had heard from the first war were horrifying, and the effect he had had on his father, turning him from a proud influential figure of pureblood society to a subservient slave, was disturbing to say the least. Draco had hoped that he could keep out of Voldemort’s clutches until he was at least of age, but considering the nature of the meeting, it seemed that he wouldn’t be so lucky.

Caught up in his musings, he wasn’t quite prepared for the information that came next.

“Harry Potter is alive, and we know where he is.”

Draco was stunned, and sat there gaping at his father for far too long, before eventually composing himself and managing to choke out a squeaky _‘how?’_

“Well, Draco, we still do not know the reason for his disappearance, nor why no tracking devices have worked, but it turned out that Wormtail’s animagus ability, as well as his previous personal connection to Lily Potter came in handy. You see, he suspected, correctly, that given Sirius Black’s incarceration and Remus Lupin’s - ah - … _condition_ ,” the word was accompanied with a rather disgusted sneer, “the boy would likely have been placed in the care of Lily Potter’s sister and her family. Peter had met them once before, and remembered where they lived. I will spare you the rest of the details, but know that the Potter boy is still with his relatives, but is now living in Muggle London.”

Draco didn’t quite know what this meant. Voldemort seemed hell bent on destroying the boy, as revenge for his downfall, but now that they actually had Potter’s location, the question of _‘what now?’_ tugged at Draco’s mind. 

“That’s fantastic news, father.”

“Indeed it is, Draco, however, there are some… obstacles that we must overcome. You see, given the Dark Lord’s current condition, he is unable to actually harm the boy himself. He requires a body, and a ritual has been planned to take place next June to help him regain one. It would be much sooner, but he must regain some of his strength before he can partake in it. The ritual will involve Potter, and this is where you come in, Draco. The Dark Lord has a task for you.”

 _Oh fuck. God fucking damn it. Bloody fucking shitballs._ He did _not_ want to get involved with this. 

“Oh?”

“You see, Our Lord could very easily wait until June, and send one of his loyal followers-” Draco knew better than to remind his father of the fact that Voldemort only had two people at his disposal- “to bring the boy to him, but he wishes to have some - _fun -_ with him in the meantime. You, Draco, are going to go undercover in the muggle world, attend his school, and get close to him. You will get to know him, gain his trust, and when the time comes, betray him. Our Lord wishes for you to report back to him Potter’s weaknesses, so he knows how best to torment him when June comes. You will do this, Draco. You will not fail.” Lucius’ words were edged with a harsh finality that made Draco’s stomach sink and his breath catch in his throat. He didn’t fucking want this. He knew what would happen if he didn’t succeed. Swallowing harshly and attempting to remove any traces of fear from his face, he met his father’s sharp gaze.

“When do I leave?”

“Tomorrow.”  
\--  
Shortly after that, he had ventured into Diagon Alley with his parents to pick up as many books on muggle studies as he could get his hands on. He had never had much interest in the subject beforehand, but he knew next to nothing about muggle culture and needed to read up on it if he hoped to manage by himself in muggle London for a year. 

Hours later, after skimming through the majority of the books, he was left with an understanding of the muggle world that was flimsy at best, but would ensure he wouldn’t find himself too lost or overwhelmed. 

With the aid of his parents, he packed a bag of his most muggle friendly clothes as well as some personal possessions, and prepared himself to leave behind everything he knew. It was always impossible to decipher any sort of emotion from his father, but it was obvious to Draco that his mother was struggling with his departure. Later in the evening, when he was just about to get ready for bed, she came up to his room and pulled him into a wordless embrace. They stood there for several minutes, before she left with a quiet, soft _‘goodnight Draco.’_

A couple of days later, after some rather stilted and skillfully emotionless goodbyes, Draco found himself adjusting to the muggle world relatively well, all things considered. His father had done a fantastic job picking out the house, especially on such short notice. It was essentially like a smaller Malfoy Manor, with the classic dark elegant decor, but littered with strange muggle appliances that Draco had quickly developed an endless fascination with. In an attempt to quell the crippling boredom and loneliness that was threatening to overtake him, he immersed himself in trying to figure out how they all worked. He wasn't very successful.

The idea of electricity was entirely baffling to him, and he didn’t understand it in the slightest. The fact that you could just flick a switch and illuminate an entire room, without magic, was insane. Of course, he had wondered in the past how muggles got by without magic, because they were clearly functioning fairly well as a civilized society, be he had never put all that much thought into it. Now it was obvious, they were fucking geniuses. Of course, he'd never admit that to any of his peers, because he didn't entirely fancy getting disowned, thank you very much, and he still firmly believed that wizards were superior (they had magic for Merlin's sake) but he had to admit that the muggle inventions were incredible. 

School started on September 5th, on a Wednesday for some fucking reason, so Draco still had another week to purchase his uniform and school supplies. After a rather frustrating experience trying to figure out how on earth to use a computer, he searched up the school he was to be attending, Stonewall Secondary School (stupid alliteration) and investigated it a bit. It had scored a ‘Requires Improvement’ in the Ofsted Inspection, and while he didn’t entirely understand what that meant, it didn’t sound good. _Merlin, please don’t let this place be shit._

He looked at the curriculum, and while a couple of the subjects sounded familiar enough - History was basically just History of Magic but without the magic, Maths sounded rather like Arithmancy, some of Biology reminded him of Herbology, and parts of Chemistry made him think of Potions - for the most part it didn’t seem like he would have a very good grasp on whatever they’d be learning this year. That didn’t entirely matter, as a couple of carefully placed confundus charms meant that none of the teachers would be paying much attention to his academics. His father had told him that less distractions would mean he’d have more time to work on the task. 

Get close to Potter. Surely, that couldn’t be too hard, right? They’d made sure that he’d be in all the same classes, and some magical persuasion insured that the two of them would always be sat together. As long as he didn’t royally fuck it up, Potter would eventually get to know him out of pure circumstance. He didn’t have anything to worry about. That was what he kept telling himself, anyway.  
\--  
Taking one more quick look at his notes on muggle culture, he prepared himself for his shopping expedition. He started school in 3 days, and he _still_ hadn’t bought his uniform or any school supplies. He wouldn’t consider himself scared, after all, Malfoys weren’t scared of anything, but the prospect of being out in central muggle London by himself for the first time was certainly overwhelming. 

He took a look back at the section in his notes on muggle transport, and double checked the wallet in his jacket pocket for his Oyster card. His father had charmed it with unlimited credit, so he didn’t have to worry about getting stranded with no way home (as long as he didn’t lose the card, of course.) 

He took a couple of calming breaths, and after standing at the door for far longer than he cared to admit, he stepped out of the house. 

The weather was unseasonably cold for August, and was coupled with a grey cloudy sky that threatened rainfall. Cursing his inability to use water-repelling charms in the muggle world, he remembered something about umbrellas and made a mental note to pick one up somewhere while he was out. _Right. Bus stop. Where was it again?_ He recalled something about a map on his phone _(what????)_ but he had yet to go anywhere near the endlessly confusing thing, and instead settled for just wandering the streets around his house until he found one. _Right. Fuck. Okay._ Glancing over at the schedule poster, he noted that the next bus to his destination town wasn't coming for another 12 minutes. _For fuck's sake._ Not trusting the not-quite-bench under the bus stand, he took a couple of steps aside and used the time to take in his surroundings.

Muggle London, if he had to describe it in one word, was _dirty._ Not entirely repulsive, just sort of... grimy. It was certainly a shock to the system, given that he'd only ever experienced the almost clinical cleanliness of the Manor, his friend's houses and Hogwarts, to come into a world of grime and dust and, glancing back at the bus stop, dubious stains. It took a significant amount of effort to keep his face from stretching into it's almost automatic look of disgust. He supposed he'd just have to get used to it, given that he had to be here for a year, but that didn't make it any easier to look around him and not want to scrub his skin off. _Rank._

Finally, the bus showed up, but immediately after turning his gaze upon it, Draco wished it hadn't. It was unsightly, an almost Gryffindor red, and spewing some sort of grey fumes that Draco doubted were anything close to safe to inhale. Standing off to the side and letting everyone else at the bus stop go first (not out of courtesy or anything, simply because he didn't have a flying fuck what he was doing,) he mentally went over his notes. Since he wasn't paying with cash, all he needed to do was step on and scan the Oyster card. These would be helpful instructions if he knew what the _fuck_ they meant. _How does one scan a card?_

All too soon, he realised everyone else was already sat down, and made a move to step onto the bus. He grabbed the card out of his wallet, and glanced up at the driver with a look that would hopefully convey his helplessness without making him seem _too_ helpless. If that made sense. The driver just gave a long-suffering sigh, looked him up and down (while Draco tried very hard not to cringe in on himself), pointed to some sort of small black surface and told him to "Put ya card there." Draco did as instructed, almost flinched at the sudden beeping sound, grabbed the ticket that _somehow_ came out of _somewhere,_ and turned to face the rest of the bus. Not wanting to draw this out any longer, he made his way to a seat at the closest to the front, and sat down. _Right. Great. Did that._ He glanced up at a screen near the ceiling that was displaying the name of the next stop, and waited.

When the bus started moving, Draco nearly yelped in surprise, and took to grabbing at the base of his seat for dear life. _Merlin's tits, why is it so bumpy?!_ _Surely they should have seat belts, right?_ Draco had learned about seat belts when reading about muggle cars, and knew they were in place to stop people from getting hurt if the car was to crash. That made sense, sure, but why have them in cars and not buses? Given how much he was shaking in his seat, partly out of fear but mostly because of the erratic movement of the _bloody bus,_ he couldn't think for the life of him why there was nothing in place to keep him from falling out of his seat. 

Finally, _finally,_ after what felt like hours but was in reality no more than 15 minutes, he reached his bloody stop, stood up, gave the driver a shaky _"thank you_ _"_ and stepped out into the town. He would've gone further into the more central parts of London under normal circumstances, but the only shop that sold his school's uniform was around here. Not entirely sure where he was going, he decided to just pick a direction and stay on the lookout for a uniform shop.

After a bit of searching, and then eventually exhausting his stubbornness and asking the least threatening person he could find for directions, he stumbled into the shop. It turned out that muggle school uniform wasn't all that different from wizarding school uniform, with the exception of blazers instead of robes. He strolled up to the desk, and got the attention of the woman behind it with his best _'I'm better than you'_ throat-clear. 

"Hello, dear. Stonewall?" she greeted. Draco gave a nod of affirmation. 

"Okay, what do you need?"

"Uh... everything."

"Right, okay. We'll start with shirts. What size are you?"

"Oh. I'm not sure." He hated how flustered he was getting, but he didn't know what the fuck he was doing. The tape measures in Madam Malkin's always just measured him themselves.

"That's fine, don't worry about it. Now, let's see here..." She trailed off and turned to the collection of white long sleeved shirts, before pulling a couple out. 

"Okay dear, go try those on and tell me which fits the best." Handing him the shirts, she pointed him to a fitting room.

A few minutes later he reemerged, holding out the best fitting shirt, and the shop assistant grabbed a couple more of the same size before placing them on the counter. This process was repeated again with the trousers and then the blazer, which didn't seem to fit right no matter what size he tried, but he supposed he was just used to professional tailoring, and toyed with the idea of getting it adjusted. Maybe he'd visit a tailor if he had time later.

By the time he was leaving the shop, almost an hour later, he was holding two full bags of clothes and had dished out £200. His understanding of muggle currency was severely lacking, so he didn't have a single clue how much money that actually was, but he hoped it wasn't too much. He never worried about running out, but if he was going to be spending large sums of money he would prefer it to be on things he actually _wanted._

Next was the school supplies, and he wandered around a bit more before coming across a WHSmiths. He stepped in, strolled past the muggle books, and stopped himself in front of a section of various muggle writing utensils. He'd found out what pens were, and was baffled to learn of what were essentially quills, but with all the ink _already inside them._ Fucking muggles and their ingenious inventions. He grabbed a pack of 10, along with some pencils, (pens that _rubbed out! what the fuck!),_ some highlighters, a rubber, a glue stick, a ruler, a pair of scissors, a terrifying looking calculator (whatever the fuck that was), a couple of folders, and some notebooks. _Merlin's balls, paper is so much better than parchment._

Pleased with his purchases, and feeling surprisingly prepared for muggle school, he wandered back to the bus stop, only getting lost a couple of times, and repeated the exhausting bus experience from earlier. _Shit,_ _I've got to get a bus every single fucking day._ While, yes, the house his father had picked out was perfect, it was nowhere near within walking distance from the school, so he would have to take the bus to get there everyday. _Fucking fantastic._

Finally reaching the house, he unlocked the door, stepped inside, relocked it again, and wandered into the living room. Dropping the bags on the floor unceremoniously, he summoned one of the Malfoy house elves and asked for some dinner. Sighing softly, he settled himself on the sofa and had another go at figuring out how to use the bloody television. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay! first real chapter!


End file.
